I want to talk about ship designs and tactics. Probably with Deject, since I don't know anyone else who has this. It's a funny thing - despite being pretty light, I found myself being distracted from my work all day with random thoughts like "Hmm, I wonder if I put blasters on my frigates, stripped out the shields, and filled it with engines..."
The game is proving to be something like a cross between GalCiv and Championship Manager, designing your ships, setting up your fleet, then sitting back helplessly as they get blown up. Despite losing on the second mission (including the easy tutorial) about six times, I found myself compelled to keep trying things until I finally beat it. Now I have, I get extra points to buy better gear and I can go back and beat them up a bit harder. I've not even tried any more missions yet.
Gratuitous Space Battles
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I've found a few things to be effective so far, but I've a long way to go.
Fighters: Fighter spam is a great tactic it seems, if you've got the pilots for it. I've found the short range pulse lasers to be the most effective weapon statistically, for whatever reason. I suspect it's because they hit the larger ships inside their shields as they pass close, rather than the longer range and more powerful weapons being deflected. Anti-fighter frigates will stop them dead, but otherwise they'll munch through even cruisers in enough time while they evade the heavy weapons fire. Watching frigates get torn apart by a swarm of fighters amid a stream of numbers is very satisfying.
Frigates: By virtue of the above, a few point defence frigates with plenty of anti-fighter weaponry will stop a fighter rush and are a useful tool. I've also been experimenting with quick, light ECM frigates which zip around disabling the shields and targeting systems of enemy attackers, but so far I've not found them to be hugely effective. In fact, of al my experiments I've found missile boats to be most effective, sitting at the back spamming long range missiles and moving around to avoid return fire from cruisers.
Cruisers: Since they're so large and expensive it's difficult to find a role for cruisers, for me at least. I've tried long range missile cruisers, short range brawlers, and all-purpose warships. Really the most effective I've found so far is my shield tank, which doesn't deal a huge deal of damage but can survive long enough to have a pretty high aggregate damage output over the battle.
Tip: Once you've set the tactics for a ship, right click and select save ship to apply them to all ships of that type.
Fighters: Fighter spam is a great tactic it seems, if you've got the pilots for it. I've found the short range pulse lasers to be the most effective weapon statistically, for whatever reason. I suspect it's because they hit the larger ships inside their shields as they pass close, rather than the longer range and more powerful weapons being deflected. Anti-fighter frigates will stop them dead, but otherwise they'll munch through even cruisers in enough time while they evade the heavy weapons fire. Watching frigates get torn apart by a swarm of fighters amid a stream of numbers is very satisfying.
Frigates: By virtue of the above, a few point defence frigates with plenty of anti-fighter weaponry will stop a fighter rush and are a useful tool. I've also been experimenting with quick, light ECM frigates which zip around disabling the shields and targeting systems of enemy attackers, but so far I've not found them to be hugely effective. In fact, of al my experiments I've found missile boats to be most effective, sitting at the back spamming long range missiles and moving around to avoid return fire from cruisers.
Cruisers: Since they're so large and expensive it's difficult to find a role for cruisers, for me at least. I've tried long range missile cruisers, short range brawlers, and all-purpose warships. Really the most effective I've found so far is my shield tank, which doesn't deal a huge deal of damage but can survive long enough to have a pretty high aggregate damage output over the battle.
Tip: Once you've set the tactics for a ship, right click and select save ship to apply them to all ships of that type.
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HereComesPete
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FatherJack
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I had a quick go last night. It's rather similar to the game I thought about designing, which I think I'll shelve for the time being.
I didn't learn an awful lot from the tutorial, it ended up with just 2v2 cruisers blasting away at each other, which I only won because their ships seemed reluctant to fire.
The stats at the end were too overwhelming to find any pointers, but since I used default ships it was hard to know where to look - had I made my own I would have tried to find how they performed.
I didn't learn an awful lot from the tutorial, it ended up with just 2v2 cruisers blasting away at each other, which I only won because their ships seemed reluctant to fire.
The stats at the end were too overwhelming to find any pointers, but since I used default ships it was hard to know where to look - had I made my own I would have tried to find how they performed.
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Joose
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Yeah, I find the stats extremely difficult to interpret in any meaningful way. Ive worked more off an experimental technique: Load a bunch of ships with an arseload of one thing, see what it does well and where it fails at.FatherJack wrote:The stats at the end were too overwhelming to find any pointers, but since I used default ships it was hard to know where to look - had I made my own I would have tried to find how they performed.
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FatherJack
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Yeah, basically what I want is to compare a ship of my own design, with a previous one of the same type, but I see no way to graph those two ships against each other. Like you, I've just been making changes and watching the battles to see how well they seem to do.
Got some fairly solid cruiser and fighter designs, but my frigates are all but a waste of money - I can leave them out and achieve the same results usually.
Got some fairly solid cruiser and fighter designs, but my frigates are all but a waste of money - I can leave them out and achieve the same results usually.
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Roman Totale
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HereComesPete
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I've got mediocre cruisers that last well backed by glass cannon frigate carrying the big beam weapons.FatherJack wrote:but my frigates are all but a waste of money - I can leave them out and achieve the same results usually.
I'm having more trouble with the battlefield tactics, refused flanks and fighter screens sometimes work, but if I forget one order on one group it goes to shit as they all spin in circles getting blown up.
ive played a few fights now and started really gettin to grips with it, im enjoying felching with the ships but i still need to have a much better look at that side of it as ive mostly been experimenting with ship placement and orders.
are all the fights 1v1? i assume multiplayer is the same if they are
edit: i just had a looksie and the multiplayer stuff looks like you set up a fleet and all its orders and such and upload it as a challenge for other people to download and play, i think you can send them to specific players and you watch them in your own time, although this doesnt mean drunken teamspackery while setting up fleets and then watching eachother explode cant happen if people are up for it
are all the fights 1v1? i assume multiplayer is the same if they are
edit: i just had a looksie and the multiplayer stuff looks like you set up a fleet and all its orders and such and upload it as a challenge for other people to download and play, i think you can send them to specific players and you watch them in your own time, although this doesnt mean drunken teamspackery while setting up fleets and then watching eachother explode cant happen if people are up for it
